Contemporaries appreciate the man rather than the merit; but posterity will regard the merit rather than the man.

All beyond enough is too much; all beyond nourishment is luxury all beyond decency is extravagance.

Form your taste on the classics, and your principles on the book of all truth.

Let the first fruits of your intellect be laid before the altar of Him who breathed into your nostrils the breath of life; and with that breath, your immortal spirit.

The love of learning, though truly commendable, must never be gratified beyond a certain limit. It must not be indulged in to the injury of your health, nor to the hindrance of your virtue.

What will the fame derived from the most profound learning avail you, if you have not learned to be pious and humble, and temperate and charitable.

There is nothing more extraordinary in this country, than the transition of the seasons. The people of Moscow have no spring. Winter vanishes, and summer is. This is not the work of a week, or of a day, but of one instant; and the manner of it exceeds belief.

On eagles' wings immortal scandals fly,

While virtuous actions are but born and die.

XXIV.

TRANSLATION, OR CONVERSION OF POETRY INTO PROSE.

Poetry when literally translated makes in general but insipid prose. Prose is the language of reason,-poetry of feeling or passion. Prose is characterized by fulness and precision. Poetry deals largely in elliptical expressions, exclamations, exaggerations, apostrophes, and other peculiarities not usually found in prose. For the purpose, also, of accommodating them to the measure of a verse, the poets frequently alter or abbreviate words, and use expressions which would not be authorized in prose. Such abbreviations and alterations, together with other changes sometimes made, are called poetic licences, because they are principally used by poetical writers.

The following are some of the licences used by poetical writers. -

1. ELISION, or the omission of parts of a word. When the elision is from the beginning of a word, it is called apheresis, and consists in cut

ting off the initial letter or syllable of a word; as, 'squire for esquire, 'gainst for against, 'gan for began, &c. When the elision is from the body of the word, it is called syncope; as, list'ning for listening, thund'ring for thundering, lov'd for loved, &c. When the elision is from the end of a word, it is called apocope, and consists in the cutting off of a final vowel or syl lable, or of one or more letters; as, gi' me for give me, fro' for from, o' for of, th' evening for the evening, Philomel' for Philomela.

2. SYNÆRESIS, or the contraction of two syllables into one, by rapidly pronouncing in one syllable two or more vowels which properly belong to separate syllables; as ae in the word Israel.

3. APOSTROPHE, or the contraction of two words into one; as, 't is for it is, can't for cannot, thou 'rt for thou art.

4. DIERESIS, or the division of one syllable into two; as, pu-is-sant for puissant.

5. PARAGOGE or the addition of an expletive letter; withouten for without, crouchen for crouch.

6. PROSTHESIS, or the prefixing of an expletive letter or syllable to a word; as, appertinent for pertinent, beloved for loved.

7. ENALLAGE, or the use of one part of speech for another; as in the following lines, in which an adjective is used for an adverb; as,

"Blue through the dusk the smoking currents shine."

8. HYPERBATON, or the inversion or transposition of words, placing that first which should be last; as,

"And though, sometimes, each dreary pause between."

"Him answered then his loving mate and true."

9. PLEONASM, or the use of a greater number of words than are neces sary to express the meaning; as,

"My banks they are furnished with bees."

10. TMESIS, or the separation of the parts of a compound word; as, Un which side soever, for, On whichsoever side.

11. ELLIPSIS, or the omission of some parts not absolutely essential to express the meaning, but necessary to complete the grammatical construction.

The poets have likewise other peculiarities which are embraced under the general name of poetic diction. In order to accommodate their language to the rules of melody, and that they may be relieved, in some measure, from the restraints which verse imposes on them, they are indulged in the following usages, seldom allowable in prose.

1. They abbreviate nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, &c.; as, morn for morning, amaze for amazement, fount for fountain, dread for dreadful, lone for lonely, lure for allure, list for listen, ope for open, oft for often, haply for happily, &c., and use obsolete words * and obsolete meanings.

* Obsolete words are words which, although formerly current, are not now in common use.

2. They make use of ellipses more frequently than prose writers omitting the article, the relative pronoun, and sometimes even its antecedent; using the auxiliaries without the principal verb to which they belong; and on the contrary, they also sometimes make use of repetitions which are seldom observed in prose.

3. They use the infinitive mood for a noun; use adjectives for adverbs, and sometimes even for nouns; and nouns for adjectives; ascribe qualities to things, to which they do not literally belong; form new compound epithets; connect the word self with nouns, as well as pronouns; sometimes lengthen a word by an additional letter or syllable, and give to the imperative mood both the first and third persons.

4. They arbitrarly employ or omit the prefixes; use active for neuter and neuter for active verbs; employ participles and interjections more frequently than prose writers; connect words that are not in all respects similar; and use conjunctions in pairs contrary to grammatical rule.

5. They alter the regular arrangement of the words of a sentence, placing before the verb words which usually come after it, and after the verb those that usually come before it, putting adjectives after their nouns, the auxiliary after the principal verb; the preposition after the objective case which it governs; the relative before the antecedent; the infinitive mood before the word which governs it; and they also use one mood of the verb for another, employ forms of expression similar to those of other languages, and different from those which belong to the English language.

But one of the most objectionable features of poetic diction is the in terjection of numerous details, between those parts of a sentence which are closely combined by the rules of Syntax. Thus, in the following extract from one of the most celebrated poets of the language, generally characterized by the simplicity of his diction, the objective case is placed before the verb which governs it, while a number of circumstances are introduced between them.

But me, not destined such delights to share,
My prime of life in wandering spent and care,
Impelled, with steps unceasing, to pursue
Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view,
That, like the circle bounding earth and skies,
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies;

My fortune leads to traverse realms alone,
And find no spot of all the world my own.

Exercises.

[In the following extracts, the student may point out the peculiarities of POETIC DICTION, which have now been enumerated.

will assist him in recognizing them.]

The cottage curs at early pilgrim bark.
The pipe of early shepherd.

The words in Italic

Affliction's self deplores thy youthful doom.
What dreadful pleasure, there to stand sublime,
Like shipwrecked mariner on desert coast!
Ah! see! the unsightly slime and sluggish pool,
Have all the solitary vale embrowned.

Hereditary bondmen! Know ye not

Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?
No fire the kitchen's cheerless grate displayed.
Efflux divine! nature's resplendent robe.
And thou, O sun!

Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen,
Shines out thy Maker; may I sing of thee!

Earth's meanest son, all trembling, prostrate falls,
And on the boundless of thy goodness calls.
In world-rejoicing state it moves sublime.

Oft in the stilly night.

For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise?
And Peace, O Virtue! Peace is all thy own.

Be it dapple's bray,

Or be it not, or be it whose it may.

Wealth heaped on wealth, nor truth nor safety buys.

And sculpture that can keep thee from to die.
The Muses fair, these peaceful shades among,
With skilful fingers sweep the trembling strings.

In the following exercises the learner is expected to write the ideas conveyed in the poetical extracts, in prose, varying the words and expressions, as well as the arrangement of

*This form of expression, where one mood of the verb is used for another, Is sometimes imitated by prose writers. Thus, "Sixty summers had passedover his head without imparting one ray of warmth to his heart; without exciting one tender feeling for the sex, deprived of whose cheering presence, the paradise of the world were a wilderness of weeds."-New Monthly Magazine. In this extract, the imperfect of the subjunctive is used without its attendant conjunction for the pluperfect of the potential. Cowper has a similar expression in his fable entitled "The Needless Alarm," where he uses the pluperfect of the indicative for the pluperfect of the potential: thus,

"Awhile they mused; surveying every face,

Thou hadst supposed them of superior race."

them, so as to make clear and distinct sentences, following

Example.

Reason's whole pleasure, all the joy of sense,

as in the

Lie in three words, health, peace and competence.

Same idea expressed in prose.

Health, peace, and competence comprise all the pleasures which this world can afford.

Example 2d.

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way.
Same line transposed in a variety of ways.
The ploughman plods his weary way homeward.
Homeward the ploughman plods his weary way.
His weary way homeward the ploughman plods.
Plods the ploughman homeward his weary way.
His weary way the ploughman plods homeward.
Homeward plods the ploughman his weary way.
The ploughman his weary way homeward plods.
Plods homeward the ploughman his weary way.
Homeward plods the ploughman his weary way.
His weary way the ploughman homeward plods, &c.

The example shows that it is not always necessary to change the language, in order to convert poetry into prose. Of the ten modes in which the above recited line has been transposed, it will be noticed that several of them are entirely prosaic.

It may here be remarked that in the conversion of poetry into

*Sir Walter Scott, in a letter to his son, (See Lockhart's Life, Vol. V., p. 54,) has the following language: "You should exercise yourself frequently in trying to make translations of the passages which most strike you, trying to invest the sense of Tacitus in as good English as you can. This will an swer the double purpose of making yourself familiar with the Latin author and giving you the command of your own language, which no person will ever have, who does not study English Composition in early life." The conversion of verse into prose it is conceived will, at least in a good degree, subserve the same useful purpose of giving command of language; and for this reason the exercises in this lesson, or similar ones, cannot be too strongly recommended, especially to those whose minds have not been disciplined by an attention to the classics.